News network to pay 'citizen journalists': Most people who write blogs just do it for kicks--as a way to vent, be creative and connect to a community.
But profit motive may soon be added to the mix. GetLocalNews.com, a nationwide network of 6,000 local news sites, is planning to share its advertising revenue with thousands of volunteer writers.
The idea is to reward and motivate contributors whose stories and photos generate the most traffic, which in turn fuels ad revenue, said Edgar Canon, chief executive of the San Francisco company. He hopes the quality of contributions improves, too.
But it's also the principle of the matter. "I think the writing-for-free thing is kind of demeaning to content producers," Canon said.
